


with regular maintenance.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kisses, M/M, Post-Purgatory, Schmoop, Season gr8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:04:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn’t take long for Cas to return to his purgatory look.</p>
            </blockquote>





	with regular maintenance.

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Deutsch available: [Bei Regelmäßiger Wartung (Übersetzung)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/971407) by [lumidaub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumidaub/pseuds/lumidaub)



It doesn’t take long for Cas to return to his purgatory look.

It’s not quite drastic; it’s just a gradual inclination back to his previous state of dishevelment, and Dean mightn’t have noticed it at all if Cas hadn’t been away for a few days.

But it catches Dean’s eye when he sees Cas next, this look of unkempt rumpledness: the crumpled trenchcoat; the wrinkled dress shirt, unbuttoned at the neck; the stubble on his face that’s beginning to look more like a beard, again, and less like a five o’clock shadow.  

“He needs a wife,” Mrs. Tate tells Dean reproachfully.  

She sighs, hands on her cheeks, and Dean has to bite back the words begging to roll off his tongue, which sound remarkably like  _oh no he doesn’t, lady_.    

“And you’d be first in line, I bet,” Dean grunts instead, and he’ll be damned if that isn’t a teasing glint in her eye.

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Tate answers, smiling up at Cas.  “I’m too much woman for him to handle,” she says smugly, and when Cas shows signs of vague alarm, Dean thinks he agrees with this assessment.

“He looks like he could use a hot meal,” she adds critically, and looks at Dean like she expects  _him_  to provide Cas with one.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Tate,” Cas says, and she shakes her head gravely, as though Cas has deeply disappointed her in some important matter, and pats his hand.

But afterwards, Dean looks at Cas carefully.

He’s starting to look less like a holy tax accountant and more like some kind of angelic vagrant, and for the first time, Dean realizes what a sharp contrast it makes to his own not-so-distant memory of Emmanuel, a neatly-dressed married man in a freshly-pressed shirt, with brushed hair and a clean-shaven look.

In comparison, this Cas looks rumpled, frayed, unkempt, and all at once something in his chest tightens when he remembers the way he’d stolen Cas, taken him like a thief in the night, spirited Cas away from what must have been the only person who’d ever bothered to take care of him, someone who’d made sure Cas had eaten regularly, even if he didn’t need to, someone who’d probably licked her thumb and rubbed dirt off his face and made sure his clothes weren’t wrinkled.  

It bothers him, and it’s ridiculous, this notion that Cas needs to be taken care of.  In the end, he takes this issue to Baby.

“He isn’t my responsibility,” he grumbles to Baby, safely tucked underneath her engine, a place where even angels of the lord fear to tread.  “It’s not up to me to make sure he cleans his plate and puts on a coat when it’s cold outside.”

“It’s  _not_ ,” he tells Baby firmly, but she seems unconvinced, and Dean can’t shake off the nagging thought that maybe, just maybe, if he put as much time and care into Cas as he spent working on Baby, maybe Cas wouldn’t have such an air of neglect hanging about him all the time.

Because it’s more than the rumpled clothes and the stubble, it’s the tired look in Cas’s eyes, the way he stares off into the distance, as though he’s not quite present, and it’s more the way he lets his shoulders droop when he sits down, as if it’s too much to keep them squared and stoic.

So when they stop for dinner, Dean shoves his plate unceremoniously in Cas’s direction, noting surreptitiously the way Cas’s gaze sharpens to focus on what’s in front of him on the table.

“Have some fries,” Dean tells him, and Cas shakes his head.  “I don’t-” he begins, but Dean cuts him off.  

“I know you don’t eat.  I know, okay?” he says gruffly.  “Just do it anyway.  You look like you could use a good meal,” he adds, reluctantly.  

Sam raises an eyebrow at him over his salad.  “I question your definition of a good meal,” he says.  “Next time, get him something that hasn’t been deep-fried to hell and back.”

Cas hesitates, but when Dean leaves the plate of fries in front of him, he actually eats, and Dean feels strangely satisfied.  

“It’s stupid,” he tells Baby later.  “He’s not a baby.  He can take care of himself.  Don’t know why everyone seems to think it’s up to me,” he says, but he thinks maybe he does know why: Dean’s the only one Cas ever comes to, asking for help, and maybe Cas can’t ask for help for what’s hurting him right now, so maybe these little things Dean can do for him will keep from falling off the edge of the map.

Because Cas’s air of dishevelment is a testament to how easily Dean could lose him again, a symptom of Cas’s own disregard for himself, and Dean knows that feeling, maybe better than anyone else could.

And then there’s the thought that if he doesn’t take care of Cas, no one else will.  And someone needs to, Dean’s suddenly sure.  

Dean’s busy cursing at the cheapskate motel ironing boards when Cas pops in, looking no better than he has since the nursing home; he’s all wayward tie and wrinkled trenchcoat.  Cas looks at the ironing board with interest.  

“I didn’t know you could iron,” he says thoughtfully, and Dean can’t help but laugh.  

“Well, someone’s got to clean up these monkey suits,” he says, running the iron down the sleeve of a dress shirt.  “We don’t have time to take them to the cleaners.  And you can’t just put these suits away wrinkled, or they’ll be messed up when we need ‘em next.”  

He steals a glance at Cas, standing there with his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat, and though Cas isn’t quite dirty, the way he was in purgatory, he’s just as rumpled and unkempt as ever, and something tightens in Dean’s chest.  He takes the dress shirt and tosses it on a hanger.  

“Give it here,” he barks, and Cas looks startled.  “What?” he asks, eyeing Dean narrowly.  

Dean motions impatiently with his hands.  “The trenchcoat.  Hand it over.”

Cas looks defensive.  “What for?” he asks, squinting at Dean like he’d just asked him to perform a strip tease.

“So I can iron it,” Dean says, exasperated. “It’s wrinkled.”  

Cas looks down at his coat with a worried frown.  “I can fix it myself, if it bothers you,” he offers, and Dean makes an exasperated noise, but when he moves towards Cas, he actually backs up, looking concerned.  

Dean stops immediately.  “Hey, it’s okay,” he says quietly.  “Just let me do this, all right?” he asks, and Cas looks at him strangely for a long moment, and then nods, almost imperceptibly.

Dean moves slowly towards Cas again, settles his hands against the lapels of the trenchcoat.  It’s frighteningly intimate; he’s never touched Cas like this before, and surely Cas doesn’t need help taking his coat off, but Dean does it anyway, placing his hands on Cas’s shoulders and tugging the trenchcoat off.

Cas looks forlorn, standing there without his coat in just - and Dean can’t help but smile at the absurdity of it - in just his suit.  “Sit down,” he orders, and Cas does;  he settles in the motel chair and watches quietly as Dean irons his coat.

Dean spreads the coat across the ironing board and thinks absently, This is something I can do for him.  This is something I could have always done for him, and there’s a lump in his throat when he swallows.  

“That’s better,” he says quietly when he hands the coat back to Cas, who examines it closely before settling it back around his shoulders.

He mentions it to Baby, the next time he’s alone behind her steering wheel.  “He’s looking better,” he reports.  “Less like some sort of holy hobo, anyway, and more like someone actually gives a shit about him,” he tells her, and Baby seems pleased.

The coat stays ironed, Dean notices later; it hasn’t returned to a state of rumpledness when he sees Cas again, and it makes a sort of pleased feeling bubble up inside him, and maybe that feeling explains why he feels compelled to reach out and pat Cas’s arm.  

“You look nice,” he blurts out, before he can stop to think, and he almost jerks away in embarrassment, until he sees an almost-smile in Cas’s eyes.

“Thank you,” Cas says gravely, and Dean wants to say those words all over again, just to see that slow smile of pleasure work its way across Cas’s face once more.

He argues it out with Baby.  “It’s not like he gets too many compliments,” he explains patiently, when Baby seems inclined towards skepticism.  “I get them all the time.  It helps, you know? I know it helps.”  

Someone needs to notice him, Dean thinks, someone needs to pay attention, because Cas is still hurting, he isn’t all better, no matter how much Dean would like to believe otherwise.    

“Someone’s got to watch out for him„” he confesses to Baby, “that idiot angel still thinks he’s gotta go it alone all the friggin’ time.”

And since there doesn’t seem to be anyone else around, Dean’s the one who pays attention.  

Cas drops by days later, and though his trenchcoat still looks ironed there’s a mournful look about him.  If it was me, Dean thinks suddenly, I don’t know - maybe I’d be looking for some company, he thinks, but the kind of company Dean’s thinking of has always been out of the cards for Cas, and that’s too bad, Dean thinks, because Cas just looks so sad, and Dean remembers the sudden brightness in Cas’s face when he’d touched his arm.

So he tries it again, the touching.  The whole process makes his mouth go dry, but he does it anyway; wraps a careful arm around Cas’s shoulders, acutely aware that at any moment could be his last, that at any moment Cas could send him up in smoke, but he holds his breath and sort of pats him on the back.

Cas stiffens, but Dean doesn’t let go.  It’s awkward as hell, and Dean thinks he’ll never be able to justify this to Baby, but he hangs on anyway, because somehow he’s got to get that look of mournful sadness off Cas’s face.  And maybe it’s working; Cas’s shoulders gradually loosen up.

“You don’t have to be Lone Ranger, you know, ” Dean says suddenly, but when Cas stiffens, he explains, “You don’t have to do everything all by yourself.  You’ve got me.  And Sam,” he adds quickly, and slowly Cas’s shoulders relax.  

Dean makes more of an effort to touch Cas after that.  

It takes a lot of conditioning to get Cas used to this new sort of handling.  They’ve never touched each other much, and only ever on the shoulders; shoulders have always been safe.  

And Dean doesn’t know why he’s compelled to reach out to Cas like this, he only knows that it’s changing something, the way he leans into Cas’s shoulder when they talk, the way he elbows him gently in the side when he makes a joke, the way he lets his fingers linger on Cas’s hand when he hands him a beer.  

But this sort of thing doesn’t come easily; Cas startles out of Dean’s touch like a spooked animal, so Dean goes out of his way to bump his shoulder as he walks by, out of his way to rest a hand on his arm once, twice, three times a day, until the day arrives when sliding his hand up Cas’s wrist to his elbow and back again feels easy, natural, good, until the day he comes when Cas doesn’t look at him with wide-eyed wonder when Dean grips his arm and tugs him along as they walk.

Dean talks it out with Baby.  “It’s like taming a wild animal„” he tells her.  “Maybe I can get a job,” he jokes to Baby.  ”Wild angel handler.  But he likes it - I think he does,” he mutters.  

It’s like walking a tightrope, Dean figures; too much fussing makes Cas think he’s incompetent; too little and Cas might think he’s all alone and not needed, and Dean maybe hasn’t realized what a difference it’s made in Cas until Sam points it out.

“He seems, well,  _happier_ ,” Sam says thoughtfully.  “Not so stiff and formal anymore.”

It’s true, Dean notices, and he wonders if maybe that strange formality about Cas has always been nothing more than uncertainty, nothing more than Cas feeling unsure about the unspoken boundaries between them, because Cas smiles more, these days, even takes off his trenchcoat without hesitation.

And Sam’s words makes something that feels an awful lot like pride go knocking about in Dean’s chest, because he did that, he’s the one who’s made Cas look like that, and maybe it isn’t the food or the clothes or anything else Dean’s done, maybe it’s just the simple gift of Dean’s attention, Dean’s caring, that has made such a change in Cas.

And maybe it’s easier to slaughter a purgatory full of monsters than it is to tell Cas that he cares, so that only thing Dean can do is show him, little by little, all the ways in which he could help, if Cas would let him.

Then the day comes when it’s Cas who reaches for Dean, instead of the other way around; when Cas moves next to him suddenly, resting his head against Dean’s shoulder with an expression on his face that makes a strange emotion flutter into existence somewhere under Dean’s ribs that feels an awful lot like  _love_.

And whatever it is, it plasters a lopsided smile on Dean’s face, and it makes him do something he’s never done before, and he gently rests his hand on Cas’s chest, letting his fingers wrap around the blue silk of Cas’s tie.

And whatever it is, it makes impossible things seem almost natural, and maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel at all strange to press a kiss against Cas’s cheek.

“Not that you’re not important,” he explains to Baby slowly.  ”It’s just that he needs me more.”

Baby doesn’t seem to mind, after all, and if anyone should have something to say about the matter it’d be her, so Dean tells her about the way Cas’s hand stole up to touch his cheek where Dean had kissed it, and the way Cas hadn’t hesitated at all before smiling, a real smile, and kissing Dean back, square on the lips.


End file.
